Page 11 of My Book Boyfriend
That’s too bad.
That’s not good.
I close the dossier, my teeth clenched.
We just sent them a cease and desist letter.
I can’t afford to be a “softie.” It’s business.
Our legal team is next on my list to call to find out our options. We’re playing hardball. Because this company is my dream and my life.
Chapter three
Lily
IpulloneofMiranda’s posters protesting Strive Developers’ threat to our community garden out of the portfolio stashed behind the library checkout counter. I spent the morning posting them in store windows and on school and day care bulletin boards around the neighborhood. The places were all very supportive.
Jade, a high school student, thanks me as I hand her one. She saw the posters and decided to do her second semester paper on the importance of community gardens.
“A package for you.” The security guard holds up a bag. “Just delivered from Banter & Books.”
I take it and look inside. It’s a copy ofHe Had No Ideawith a handwritten note.
Dear Lily,
Thanks for giving me your copy.
I hope you’ll accept this gift ofHe Had No Ideain return.
– Rupert
That’s kind of thoughtful.
I shake my head.Don’t think you can butter me up, Mr. Rupert Evans, Evil Developer. If you’d just returned the copy you borrowed yesterday, I’d be fine.
Did he know I am involved with the community garden? Maybe he came in to check out what he was up against. And was vastly reassured to find some distracted, casually dressed librarian, so pathetic that even elderly patrons are trying to set her up. Somebody who is holding on to the hope of some guy, even when it seems pretty unlikely. Somebody who has crushed on a guy for a year instead of confronting him and telling him she likes him.
I sigh. I do hate confrontation.
Mr. Devi comes up to the counter. “That was a very nice, young man yesterday, that Rupert Evans. He walked me home to make sure I was safe.” He shakes his finger at me. “I did my best to sing your praises. And I told him the days you work here.”
My skin flushes again.
“I just found out he’s also the developer who sent us the cease and desist letter about the garden,” I say.
“Oh.” Mr. Devi’s face falls, but he recovers quickly. “Plenty more fish in the sea.”
“Plenty of piranhas too,” I say.
Mr. Devi laughs.
At five, I am off to the garden—my oasis.
I breathe a sigh of relief as a clean, wire fence comes into view. No new threatening letters. This morning, I had ripped off a copy of the cease and desist letter from where it was taped to the metal bars and opened the gate. We were definitelynotgoing to cease and desist using our garden.
Four elderly people, all bundled up in blankets, are playing bridge at the stone table near the wall of still-green bamboo. They’re here every day, unless it’s raining or snowing. The bamboo hides the street, muffling the noise, and creates the illusion that we’re far from the city. But it was a lot of work to put in the preventive plastic around its roots to keep the bamboo from overtaking the whole garden.
Our cherry tree is still bare, its brown branches twisting and stretching up toward the sky, each bough a fair distance from another, giving space to grow. The brick wall of the building that abuts our garden forms a soft, hazy, pink patchwork background. A blue jay alights on one branch followed by its partner.
